Page 128 of Wait for Him

The door opens again before anyone answers, and Laura, our HR Director, walks in carrying a stack of packets.

"Hello. Sorry to keep you all waiting."

She takes the chair at the head of the table.

The chair reserved for whoever called the meeting.

Laura passes a packet down each side of the table, and I don't touch mine at first. I just watch it slide toward me until it stops beside my hand.

"I've brought you here because Rosalie is resigning as Senior Counsel and relinquishing her seat on this board."

The room goes silent. I look at Rose.

Bennet's head whips toward his sister, mouth open, brows crashed together.

So he didn't know either. Fuck. It just keeps getting worse. She's not just done with me. She's sealed herself off from all of us.

He draws breath to speak, but Laura's hand comes up. "We all know the bylaws. She couldn't disclose the board seat until this moment. Please hold questions until the end. Your materials outline the division of her shares and the candidates for her seat."

I can't look at the papers. I can't take my eyes off Rose.

Her gaze stays fixed on Laura. Her fingers are linked together and resting on the conference table, still as a photograph, not a tremble in sight. Three weeks ago I watched this woman shatter on a marble floor, and now she sits twenty feet away from me immaculate and unreachable, and I can't decide if what I'm looking at is healing or the world's most beautiful sarcophagus.

“...Jade Gallagher will be stepping in as Senior Counsel, effective immediately. Do either of you need to address the room?"

I realize I haven't heard a single fucking word.

"No. I'm done here," Rose says, matter-of-fact.

"Then we're adjourned."

Just like that.

Rose starts gathering her things while the rest of the board closes in around her with their pleasantries. We'll miss you. What an incredible run. You built half of this place. She doesn't smile at a single one of them. She nods along to whatever they're saying with the mechanical courtesy of a woman greeting strangers at a funeral, and I realize with a sick lurch that that's exactly what this is.

We're all standing around the casket making small talk.

None of them can see the body.

Jade leans in close and murmurs something against Rose's ear before slipping out of the room. Rose doesn't react to that either. Whatever was said, it was already known, already settled. The two of them have choreographed this down to the minute while the rest of us were carrying on like her life hadn't already been dismantled behind closed doors.

None of this feels real. There should be a vote. A transition period. A hearing. A fight. Something with friction in it. Something that takes time. Something that gives a man an opening.

But she's a lawyer.

Of course the bylaws are airtight. Of course she found the one clean seam in the whole corporate structure and slipped through it without a sound.

She's been planning this since...

Since the night I left her apartment.

She's been executing this for three weeks while I watched a green status light on my screen and told myself it meant she was okay.

Bennet clears his throat, sharp enough that the board members still lingering around Rose scatter like birds.

"Sis." His voice has none of the boardroom in it now. "Why?"

"I have to. I don't have a choice."